Facebook seems to be setting up a team that will develop its own chips. In any case, it concerns chips for the infrastructure of the social network, but Facebook may also want to provide its consumer products with its own chips in the future.
The fact that Facebook wants to make its own chips is apparent from a vacancy for an asic and fpga designer that the company has put online. The wording shows that Facebook is in an early stage of development.
Sources from financial news agency Bloomberg say it’s not just one position, but that Facebook is setting up a team. If Facebook starts making its own chips, it will follow other tech giants such as Apple and Google. Car manufacturer Tesla is also working on its own chips.
The plans for a proprietary chip seem to be mainly related to artificial intelligence. Yann LeCunn, who is responsible for all of the research on that topic at Facebook, refers in a tweet to the vacancy and mentions that the chip will be used for AI.
Facebook could use its own chips in its server hardware, as well as in its future consumer products. For now, the hardware that Facebook releases will still have third-party chips. For example, the announcement of the Oculus Go VR headset is expected in May, with a Qualcomm soc.